When the sun’s rays disappeared from the window frames and the sky over the rocky landscape outside the mansion grew dusky blue, the little girl rose and started a fire in the great fireplace. Then she sat back down with her sewing and waited for Malchizedek.
The house made strange noises. Creaks and whines. Clanks and shuffles. Jorinda wondered if it was the ogre, moving around his house. But the sounds came from upstairs and downstairs, to her left and to her right all at once. Strange indeed.
Finally, the last light was extinguished from the sky. The small fire, crackling and popping in the grate, was the only light in the whole house—and probably for many miles around. Jorinda felt cold. She began to shiver.
And at that moment, she noticed something she had not seen before.
Off in a far corner of the room, two eyes flashed at her. They looked like cat eyes—incandescent and almond-shaped. But they were not green, nor yellow, like most cat eyes. They were crimson. And they blazed like fire.
“Hello?” the little girl said.
The eyes blazed on.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she whispered to herself. She rose to her feet and walked gingerly toward the cat. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she murmured. “Here, kitty.”
“Meow,” replied the cat.
Jorinda smiled.
And then the smile slid from her face.
For as she approached the cat, she saw that it was no typical housecat. It was a panther, a jaguar, a black tiger—a great, fearsome, jungle beast.
“Here, kitty?” she tried once more.
And then the kitty pounced.
Jorinda screamed and threw herself backward, sliding across the floor. The great black cat landed just before her, gnashing humongous teeth in slavering jaws. Jorinda pulled herself back, and back, and back, and the great black cat followed her, hissing, its silky coat rippling with hidden power, its fiery eyes flashing.
And then the cat leaped at her again. Jorinda prepared to die.
Suddenly, the beast froze in midair. It made a choking, hissing sound. And then it crashed to the floor.
The great cat was straining, straining to get at Jorinda. But it made no progress. And then Jorinda noticed a chain, thick and black, extending from the beast’s neck back to the wall. She wanted to cry with relief.
Until she saw the eyes behind her.
These, too, flashed red like fire and were joined by growling and snarling. And then, from the darkness, leaped an enormous, monstrous dog. It had a thick, matted black coat, huge foaming jaws, and teeth like knives. Jorinda screamed and pulled herself away from it. But in so doing, she was approaching the great cat again.
The cat reached for her with its long claws, hissing and swiping at the air. Jorinda jumped away. The great dog snarled and snapped. She jumped away from that. The beasts’ eyes burned like flames.
There was a single place, right in the center of the room, where the girl could stand and neither the cat nor the dog could reach her. So she stood in that spot, hyperventilating, trying not to pass out.
And then there were more eyes. Pairs of fiery eyes all around the room.
Jorinda decided to scream.
She screamed and screamed and screamed at the top of her lungs, and more huge black beasts—bears and wolves and wolverines—leaped from the walls, their eyes blazing, their jaws snapping, their claws swiping.
As the beasts flew through the air toward her, the little girl said to herself, “I am about to be dead.”
But, all at once, all of the black beasts stopped in midair and crashed to the wooden floorboards. They, too, were on chains. If Jorinda stood as straight as a board and as still as a stone, directly in the center of the room, not one of them could reach her with jaw or claw.
And so Jorinda remained in that one spot, not moving, barely breathing—as a dozen slavering red-eyed beasts snarled and snapped and growled and hissed within inches of her flesh. All she had to do was buckle with fear, collapse from fatigue, or try to escape, and she would die.
So she did the only thing she could do.
She closed her eyes and waited.
Six hours later, the first ray of sun shot through a cobwebbed windowpane. At that very instant, all of the slavering, growling, yowling, hissing, snapping, biting, murderous creatures instantly disappeared.
At which point, Jorinda passed out.
* * *
Not long thereafter, the door opened. The king poked his head in.
“Is she dead?” someone whispered.
The king’s eyes roved over the room. He started. Jorinda was sitting by the fireplace, sewing. “How—” he stammered, “how are you still alive?”
The little girl shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be alive?” She stood up and stretched her legs.
The king shook his head like he was seeing things. “Malchizedek didn’t kill you? I was pretty sure he would kill you.”
“He didn’t kill me.”
“He’s killed all the others.”
“Oh,” said Jorinda. “Interesting.”
“Well? Did he agree to pay?”
Jorinda shook her head. “I didn’t see him. But I played with his pets. They were cute.”
The king peered at her curiously. Then he said, “If you didn’t see him, you must stay here again tonight. We’ve got to have those taxes.”
Jorinda gritted her teeth and pretended to smile.
As the king was leaving, he turned and looked at the little girl one last time. She kept smiling. The king shook his head in wonder and closed the door.
Jorinda stared after him. She should leave. She should run away on the mountain track and try to find her way to the kingdom.
But where would she go? The king wouldn’t let her come back to the castle, would he? And she wouldn’t go home. Not after what had happened there. No matter how terribly she missed Joringel. Besides, she decided, if she could get Malchizedek to pay, the king would have to let her become the princess of all Grimm.
Jorinda set her jaw, buckled her heart into a tiny little ball, and got back to her sewing.
I don’t know about you, but if I were Jorinda, I would do the sensible thing and run away screaming right about now.
That night, when the last light of the sun disappeared from the window frame, Jorinda saw no flaming eyes in the corners. And she looked for them. Believe me.
So she sat sewing by the fire. Again, strange sounds came from the house around her. There was creaking and scraping, dragging and shuffling, and again it all seemed to come from above and below and to the left and to the right. Jorinda’s skin was crawling.
And then she heard the words, “Help me!”
She sat straight up. The words were quiet. But desperate.
“Help me!”
They seemed to be coming from the chimney.
“Help me!”
Jorinda stood, went to the fireplace, and peered up the chimney. She could see nothing but darkness.
“Help me!”
Whoever or whatever it was, it was certainly up there. So Jorinda grabbed the flue handle, which opens and closes the chimney, and gave it a hard turn to the left. Then she gave it a hard turn to the right. Then she gave it a hard turn to the left again.
With a loud crash, the fire exploded, spewing ash and dust everywhere.
Jorinda staggered backward, covering her face and choking. Finally, the cinders settled, and she was able to wipe the soot from her face and look.
Crawling away from the fire was half a man.
It was the top half. He had no hair at all, no clothes, bulging eyes, and vaguely green skin. He was pulling himself forward by his fingernails, out of the fire, into the room. And he was moaning, “Help me! Help me! Help me!”
Jorinda backed away.
“Help me!” he moaned. He dragged hi
mself toward her. “Help me!”
“How can I help you?” she asked. She could not stop staring at the torn and tattered flesh just below his belly button—where his body ended.
“Help me!” He dragged himself slowly after her. She moved to the left, to get out of his way.
He followed her.
She moved to the right.
He followed her.
“Help me!” he cried. “Help me!”
“How?” asked Jorinda. “How? Tell me how!”
And then the fireplace exploded with dust and ash again, and when it had cleared and the girl had wiped the soot from her face again, she saw a pair of legs, kicking and dancing in the flames.
“Are those yours?” she asked.
“Help me!”
Clearly they were. They, too, were hairless and naked save for a loincloth, and they too had a sickly green tint. They kicked frantically out of the fire and into the middle of the room.
“Help me!”
“Okay, okay!” she said. “I’ll help you.” So she walked over to the legs, grabbed them by a foot, and dragged them toward the top half of the man. They kicked and danced as she pulled them, as if they were fighting her. When she got them as near the man’s top half as she could, she sat on them. “Come here,” she said.
The half man pulled himself toward her, moaning, “Help me!”
Jorinda grabbed him by the arm and flipped him onto his back. Then she yanked his body toward his legs, which she was still sitting on. Finally, she took out her sewing kit.
“Help me!”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
She took out a needle and some very thick thread, and she began to sew the top half of the man to the bottom half. The legs stopped kicking, the arms stopped grasping, but the man kept moaning, “Help me! Help me!”
At last, Jorinda connected the first stitch to the last stitch and tied the thread off with a sturdy knot.
“There,” she said. “All done.”
The pale green man with no hair and wide eyes stared at her. And then he said, “Thank you.”
She smiled at him.
And then he said, “Now I am going to kill you.”
“What?” she cried.
The man’s green, hairless arms snapped closed around Jorinda’s body, and his muscular hands grabbed her by the throat. They were like iron. He squeezed her and squeezed her. She began to choke. She could not breathe. She grabbed his hands and pulled and yanked and pried and kicked. But still she was choking, gagging, suffocating. Her eyes bulged. Her face convulsed. Veins burst in her forehead. Her vision failed.
Her hands dropped to her sides. Still the man strangled her with his iron grip. She was dying. He lifted her into the air and strangled her.
And then, with her very last strength, the fingers on Jorinda’s left hand reached into the pocket of her frock, shakingly opened the little sewing kit, and managed to remove a pair of silver scissors. The scissors traveled slowly, tremblingly, out of her pocket and to the man’s midsection. There, they found the thick thread that held the two halves of him together, and they cut it.
The scissors fell to the floor. The man continued to crush her windpipe, as if nothing had happened. She was dying. Dying. But, with trembling, convulsing fingers, she took hold of the thick thread, and she pulled. Her legs dangled, she saw nothing but darkness, but she pulled and pulled and pulled.
The man’s grip went lax.
Jorinda fell to the ground in a heap.
She lay there and choked and coughed and heaved the sweet air into her lungs. Her throat ached. Her eyes burned. Her nose ran. But she could breathe. She could breathe.
At last, she looked up. The top half of the man was crawling around moaning, “Help me! Help me! Help me!” And his legs kicked and danced in the middle of the floor.
Jorinda got up and stoked the fire. Then she grabbed the man’s legs by a heel, and the top of him by a wrist. She dragged them across the room. And then, one after the other, she threw each half of the man into the fire.
“Help me!” he moaned. “Help me!” Jorinda watched the green skin turn black. “Help me! Help me!” His bones crackled in the flames.
By morning, there was nothing left of him.
* * *
When the sun was streaming into the room in all of its yellow glory, the king threw the door open and peered inside.
“Well?” he called. “Are you dead yet?”
Jorinda was sitting by the fire. Not sewing. She was done with sewing.
“No!” she called back. “Still alive! Thanks for asking!”
The king came into the house with his guards.
“Did Malchizedek come?”
“No, but his friend did. I helped him with some sewing, and we talked for a while. Then he had to go.”
“Oh,” said the king, gaping and nodding at the little girl. “Okay.”
“I’ll wait for him one more night,” she informed the king. “But if he doesn’t come tonight, I say he doesn’t live here anymore, and you can take this place for your summer palace.”
“Ah!” smiled the king wanly. “Yes! Good idea!” He backed out of the house, nodding and smiling at Jorinda like he was afraid of her.
* * *
Jorinda sat in the big dark room with the cobwebs and the sheeted furniture all day. She drummed her fingers on the floor. She stared out the window at the great stone cliffs circling the huge crevasse. She wondered what the night would bring.
At last, the light failed, and, for the third evening in a row, Jorinda got the fire going in the grate. The house made its strange noises—creaks and whines and clanks and the sound of things being dragged around upstairs and downstairs and all around.
And then, the sounds seemed to come together. They seemed to concentrate themselves on the room just next to the one Jorinda was sitting in. They grew louder, and louder, and louder. And then—
BAM! The door to the room slammed open, and standing in it was an enormous, hideous form. Its huge body terminated at the top of its huge, hunching shoulders—which towered over a long scrawny neck, craning out from the body like a vulture’s. A bald head with a great white beard, tiny black teeth, and round, red-rimmed eyes was perched at the end of the neck.
It was an ogre.
At least, Jorinda figured it was. She had never seen an ogre before—but when you see one, you just kinda know it.
“Who is in Malchizedek’s house?” the ogre boomed.
Jorinda stood up. “Me,” she said. And she curtsied.
The ogre strode forward until he was standing directly in front of her. She stood no taller than his waist. He bent his great ugly head to see the little girl.
“Why do you violate my home?” His voice was like war drums.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Malchizedek, sir,” Jorinda stammered, curtsying again. “I’d just like to talk to you for a minute.”
“What of?” His breath smelled like rotting fish. His black teeth seemed ready to fall out of his gums. His red-rimmed eyes stared.
Slowly, Jorinda said, “I think you have been wronged.”
Malchizedek furrowed his brow. “By whom?”
“The king,” she replied.
Malchizedek frowned. Then he said, “Go on.”
“He claims you owe him taxes,” the small girl continued, peering up at the ogre’s enormous, crooked form. “But my guess is you don’t.”
“Indeed I do not!” boomed Malchizedek.
“He’s confiscated your land, I gather?” she continued. “Eminent domain or something?”
“Yes!” bellowed Malchizedek. “Indeed he did!”
And then Jorinda said, “Tell me about it.”
So Malchizedek took the white sheets off two of the chairs, pulled them up to the fire, and told her all about it.
“Once, this house stood on a beautiful meadow. It was all grass and trees and sheep grazing peacefully. But then this king, when he was quite young, decided that the Castle Grimm needed to be larger.” The ogre rolled his eyes. Jorinda did, too. The ogre smiled approvingly. “He announced that the stone would be quarried from the meadow, for it is well known that the stone in these mountains is the best in all of Grimm.” Jorinda nodded as if it was indeed well known. “I protested greatly, for this was my meadow, and it was beautiful. But the king claimed eminent domain, and my beautiful meadow was destroyed.”
“Terrible,” Jorinda murmured. And she wasn’t lying. It did sound terrible.
“So now I refuse to pay the king taxes. Is that so wrong?” The ogre tipped his great, ugly face down to Jorinda’s, as if he really wanted to know what she thought.
“No,” she said. “It isn’t wrong at all.”
Malchizedek got a faraway look on his face, and for a long time, no one said anything. And then, quite suddenly, he brought his red-rimmed eyes right up to Jorinda’s. “Wait, why are you here?”
Jorinda took a deep breath. Then she explained the whole story. That she was supposed to marry the king’s son, that the king didn’t like her very much, and that he’d brought her here to be killed.
“That’s not what he told me, of course,” she added. “He told me to ask you to pay your taxes. But what are the chances that I could get you to pay your taxes?”
“None.”
“He expected you to kill me,” Jorinda explained.
“I still might,” said Malchizedek.
“Oh”—Jorinda nodded—“I know.” And then she added, “But wouldn’t you rather have a friend for life living in the castle? First as the princess and then as the queen?”
Malchizedek thought about that for a moment. A sly look crept into his features. “Only,” he answered, “if that queen would give me a new house, with a great big meadow. As a gift, of course.”
She nodded. “I think the queen might be willing to do that. But first she’d have to get to be queen.”